


Everyone Dies Eventually

by OldToadWoman



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, POV Jaime Lannister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 17:37:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18855826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldToadWoman/pseuds/OldToadWoman
Summary: Short scene set immediately after Season 8, Episode 5.





	Everyone Dies Eventually

**Author's Note:**

> Rated "Teen" for violence, gore, swearing, and the existence of the Lannister family. (If you've ever watched the show, nothing in this story will shock you.)
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He couldn't breathe.

He couldn't even cough.

It was worse than the dimly-registered throbbing in his leg where a stone had glanced by tearing a gash in his skin. It was worse than the literal stabbing pain in his sides. It was worse than the spinning in his head that left him unsure of which way was up.

It was worse than Cersei's whining, but that was a near thing.

"Jaime! Jaime, help me! Save me!"

 _I'm trying to save myself, you stupid cow_ , he thought angrily. Perhaps the anger was the energy he needed. He shakily drew in one wheezing breath. It wasn't enough to get behind a cough, but a second shaky breath followed and soon he was coughing the dust out of his lungs.

"Jaime!" Cersei demanded again. "Over here."

His hand was pinned between two heavy stones. His right hand, thank fuck. He undid the buckles on his forearm and slipped free. There was a faint light coming through the top of the arch now. The rubble had shifted in the final collapse. It would take some awkward climbing, but there was a chance.

"Jaime! Jaime, I'm _hurt_." She didn't sound hurt. She sounded offended. How dare the ceiling fall on _her_? Didn't it know she was a Lannister?

He shoved a few loose rocks aside and limped over to her.

He was honestly surprised to discover that she really was hurt. A slab the size of an elephant lay across her lower body. 

"Jaime, I can't move my legs," she said, a trace of fear _almost_ overtaking her anger. " _Help me!_ "

He didn't imagine she actually had legs any longer. Or hips. Or a baby. Probably more polite to not bring that up.

"The archway seems to have cleared itself," he said.

"Don't leave me!"

"No, of course not," he said, mostly to himself. "I've never been good at that."

"You came here to save me, so _save me_!"

Jaime laughed. She sounded so _normal_ , so _Cersei_. She had no idea.

"I came here to kill you actually," he said.

"What?"

"Well, you sent Bronn to kill me," Jaime pointed out. "It seemed only fair."

"I did no such—"

"You offered him Riverrun. Tyrion and I offered him Highgarden."

" _Bronn_ Lord of Highgarden?" A snob to the last. 

"I _know_. That's what I said. But Tyrion insisted and Bronn did have a crossbow aimed at my head at the time so there you are."

"I'll have his head," Cersei muttered.

"Are you glad I'm alive or not?" Jaime asked. "You seem conflicted."

"Forgive me?" she said in a voice she probably imagined sounded meek.

Another stone gave way to gravity and clattered down the pile of rubble on its own.

"Don't leave me!"

She sounded scared that time.

He sat down on a stone near her head. There were ominous creaking sounds all around. Time was short.

"Don't you want to know why I didn't kill you?" Jaime asked.

"I don't believe you ever intended to kill me," she said and then coughed. It wasn't a sad dying cough. It was the surprisingly healthy cough of someone who'd just eaten too much dust. She sounded better than he did in fact. The slab that had crushed her was acting as a tourniquet. She'd technically lost more blood than he had, but her heart wasn't going to miss it.

"You sent Bronn to kill me," he repeated. "And then you killed a dragon and captured Daenerys Targaryen's closest friend."

She was silent.

"You know what a friend is. I'm sure you've heard of them. The point is I was on my way south before I even knew you'd killed Missandei."

"What does that woman have to do with anything?"

"I thought that if I got here ahead of the battle, I could slip into the keep and kill you unawares. A coup without a single innocent death."

"Besides mine?"

" _Innocent_ death," Jaime repeated.

"You were a little late."

"I got captured. I was so focused on slipping into the city past _your_ guards, it didn't occur to me that I needed to slip through Dany's lines."

" _Dany_?" Cersei scoffed. "You sound awfully cozy. Did you fuck her?"

 _No, I fucked Brienne of Tarth,_ he thought and was tempted to say it aloud, but Cersei wouldn't understand and Brienne didn't deserve more derision even behind her back.

"I fought alongside those men against the army of the dead," Jaime said. "It never occurred to me that they wouldn't let me pass. But _apparently_ , the Dragon Queen didn't trust me. Anyway, Tyrion freed me, but I lost several hours."

"I should have known Tyrion was behind it."

"Tyrion sent me to _save_ you. Only the gods know why."

"You could start by getting this fucking stone off of me!" she spat. "I can't budge it."

And she _tried_. She shoved with all her might as if she had a chance.

"I'm flattered that you think I can lift that," Jaime said.

"Help me!" she ordered again.

"You are dead, Cersei. You have to know that. Your Mountain couldn't lift that."

She choked back a sob. "Our baby—"

"So, I was on my way to kill you," Jaime hurried on to distract himself as much as her, "because I hate you, almost as much as I hate myself, but I didn't make it into the keep before they shut the gate so I had to go the long way round through the bayside, where I ran into your pirate-lover-whateverhewas Euron and we stabbed each other a lot. He's dead, by the way. And when I found you it was already too late. So instead, I tried to comfort you as you died. History’s worst assassination attempt. It's not like killing you would have helped anything with the whole city already in flames."

"She's insane," Cersei spat.

"And you taunted her," Jaime pointed out. "You taunted her and murdered her best friend without any justification. You _taunted_ a _Targaryen_. I just want it officially noted that _you_ are the stupidest Lannister."

"I think the battle's over," Cersei said. The ominous creaking continued, but when he thought about it, he hadn't heard anything explode in quite a while.

"She's going to execute Tyrion," Jaime said. "She'll know he was the one who set me free. And the worst part is that he'll actually tell everyone I was trying to save you. No one is ever going to know the truth, unless…"

He stared at the dust dancing in the ray of sunlight peeking in.

"You've thought of a way to save me," Cersei said, strangely confident. When he didn't answer, she continued. "I know you. You've thought of something."

"I have thought of something," he agreed. "But not everything's about you."

He stood up because for some reason it made sense to talk up towards that sunbeam. He even cleared his throat and made a futile effort to shake dust out of his hair because making a good impression seemed important now.

"Bran Stark, if you can hear me, if you know what happened here, you tell her. You tell her that I loved her. You tell her I was—I was never a good man and we all know it, but you tell her that I tried to be a less awful one than I once was. I'm so sorry, for everything."

"Bran _Stark_?" Cersei repeated incredulously. "Is one of the Starks here?"

She tried to turn her head to see who he was talking to.

"You don't even remember him, do you?" Jaime said.

"There were a lot of Starks. How can I keep them all straight?"

"I'm leaving now."

"You can't," she said.

"I'm going to climb up through that opening there, make my way back to the bay where I've got a skiff waiting. The natural current is north if I'm not wrong. I should be able to drift out to sea without even rowing, which is fortunate since I can't. And then… I don't know, I'll probably still get picked off by a fucking dragon or another pirate or maybe I'll just drift in circles until I die of thirst."

"You won't," she said.

"You're right. Odds are I die of infection. I don't trust your Euron to keep his weapon clean. But I can try."

"Don't leave me!"

"I won't," he agreed. More rocks fell in the distance. Time was well and truly running out. "I could never really leave you. You've always been my greatest weakness. No matter how many times I try to get away, it's like my soul is tethered to yours. You always drag me back."

"Give me your hand," she said, reaching out to him in the dimness. 

The worst part was that he wanted to. He wanted to sit there and hold her hand and reassure her she'd be alright as she took too many fucking hours to die.

"I'm sorry, Cersei. I truly am. I've only got the one hand and I'm afraid it's occupied." 

He slammed the jagged rock into her forehead. The first blow was certainly fatal, but he smashed the rock into her broken skull a few more times just to be sure.

And then he bent double and vomited his guts out. 

"You can leave that part out if you wouldn't mind, Bran," he said to the ceiling.

Crawling up a shifting pile of rubble one-handed was slow and frustrating, but he made his way back to the bay where the small boat was still sitting safely on shore.

He glanced back at the smug pirate as the skiff drifted away. His last words still echoed in Jaime’s head. _I am the man who killed Jaime Lannister!_

"You may yet be right," he agreed, no longer able to ignore his throbbing wounds. "But not today."


End file.
